Pages

Saturday, August 13, 2011

A spectacular betrayal

Its not about India losing. Its not even about the 0-4 scoreline. The sense of betrayal I feel is beyond the hurt of losing.

India have lost before and almost never I had to question their commitment or their intelligence. This time around I question both.

Their commitment to their national duties needs to be questioned. Immediately after the World Cup, they knew their next national duty was in the West Indies and England. There was more than enough time to prepare for the tours. The most prestigious tours in the context of cricket.

And yet they collectively; the players and the board; adorned pom-poms and entertained cricket obsessed Indians, publicity starved Indian film stars and opportunistic business tycoons. For them, the Indian cricketing establishment became jokers performing circus stunts in return for some cash.

It is not the IPL that is to be blamed. There is the Netherlands Circus in a nearby town outside London and I have nothing against it. Not its producers, not its performers, not its spectators. Its a perfectly valid channel and means for entertainment and business. It is India's mindlessness and stupidity in investing resources meant for national duty into the IPL circus that has to be questioned.

And then Dhoni has the gall to comment on the schedule and work load. England have had the same work load, but they have the intelligence to stay away from risking their players performing circus stunts.

Then they treat the West Indies tour as if its a voluntary, social service type community duty. They cribbed about umpiring when they won comfortably betraying an arrogance that is not usually associated with Indian cricket and when the time came to be arrogant in a strict cricketing sense, they went home. 96 runs in 16 over was a bit much beyond the cricketing ability and intelligence of India's cricket greats.

And what did they think The Pataudi Trophy is some sort of a street play? Where you can call on some neighborhood stars and produce a play to an applause of neighbors or tourists? That Test cricket methods can be turned on and off at the switch of a button.

Teams have been white washed before. Humiliated even. But India have just delivered the most spectacular betrayal to their national duties. The list includes the Board and the players, led by Sachin Tendulkar, Virendra Sehwag, Zaheer Khan and Gautam Gambhir.

2 comments:

India's weaknesses outside India were exposed fully and badly here. they were no. 1 more due to their wins in the sub-continent. The outside wins came on tracks which did not seam as much as the tracks did in England.

India have won series in WI and Eng back to back in 1971 and periodically there after. So while bounce and pace have been something India have been unable to handle consistently, its been done before with some preparation, intent and intelligence. Nevertheless the point of the post is not why India lost; the rant is against using resources marked for national tours for private cricket like the IPL